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Showing posts from August, 2018

Spidermen risk limbs for stunt across the Yarra

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Source: https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/spidermen-risk-limbs-for-stunt-across-the-yarra/news-story/c1ebd8b0513dd719572b34646adc63a0

Jokes about Primark fire fall flat in the face of losses to staff and shoppers

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Jokes about Primark fire fall flat in the face of losses to staff and shoppers BelfastTelegraph.co.uk What a hoot, Primark has burned down. As firefighters desperately tried to save the grand old building, local wags and lame-brains with nothing better to do rushed to social media to begin crafting their "hilarious" quips about the blaze. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/fionola-meredith/jokes-about-primark-fire-fall-flat-in-the-face-of-losses-to-staff-and-shoppers-37267633.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/fionola-meredith/article37267632.ece/29492/AUTOCROP/h342/2018-08-31_opi_43697361_I1.JPG Email What a hoot, Primark has burned down. As firefighters desperately tried to save the grand old building, local wags and lame-brains with nothing better to do rushed to social media to begin crafting their "hilarious" quips about the blaze. The flames weren"t even out before we were completely engulfed with inane attemp

CLIMATE STEADY BUT LEADERSHIP CONSTANTLY CHANGING

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Source: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/blogs/tim-blair/climate-steady-but-leadership-constantly-changing/news-story/24f7ab99eb59c49f658627e7c9154b58

In Norfolk theater, "Stupid ... Bird" flies on the wings of satire and tragedy

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A literary bird has landed in Norfolk to show us that the groping, sad side of life can be satirically amusing, if not outright hilarious. “Stupid ... Bird,” a so-called “remix” of Anton Chekhov’s Russian whine-fest “The Seagull,” combines pathos (from Chekhov) and satire (from modern sensibilities) and surprisingly gets away with it. The modern obsession with nailing oneself to the cross gets a mischievous take here. There is no pity like self pity, so try to laugh. This evening helps. The play is getting its local premiere at the Generic Theater and is proving that it can sit on the same shelf with Chekhov. It is the best adaptation of Chekhov since Louis Malle’s 1994 movie “Vanya on 42nd Street” and much more exciting than this year’s “The Seagull” movie adaptation that starred Annette Bening. “Bird” is remarkable for its restraint in avoiding the vulgar or the superficial. It is an incisive attack on the phoniness of existential trauma that was somewhat introduced by Chekhov but ha

I witnessed a man bullying a woman in a bar. Should I have intervened?

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I was recently out at a bar on a Sunday afternoon. The couple next to me (who I’m not sure were actually a couple – the woman kept saying to the man, “You’re my best friend”) were having a heated discussion over a bottle of wine. Maybe they were a bit drunk. All I know is it was so awkward sitting next to them that my friends and I, and a number of others, swiftly moved from the table , despite the bar being packed. We resorted to sitting on a wall next to them but, unfortunately, still in earshot. They were argu ing about feminism and clearly the guy didn’t agree with her. I found it hard to listen to – he was completely disrespecting her. He kept calling her ideas stupid, and would say, “Can you understand how stupid you sound?” He denied her version of the world. When she talked about feeling held back as a woman he ridiculed her, asking who was holding her back and how, saying maybe it was just her own fault. It’s not that I have a problem with scrutinising what someone says, it ju

Police, magistrate give driver stick for budget car buy

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AN IPSWICH man was so pleased with his new car that he overlooked the fact he wasn"t licensed to drive it. A court heard Andrew Bromley snapped up an affordable car with a manual transmission, even though his licence only covered him to drive an auto. Having to change gears apparently didn"t faze him, with Bromley spotted by police in his Nissan hatchback zipping across three lanes of the Ipswich Motorway at speed. Bromley, 30, from Redbank Plains, pleaded guilty in Ipswich Magistrates Court to driving without due care and attention, without reasonable consideration of other drivers at Redbank on August 8; and failing to comply with conditions of his licence. Prosecutor Sergeant Jo Colston said police were driving east at 5.30pm when the Nissan was seen merging across a painted traffic island, then proceeded across three lanes of traffic, accelerating over the 100km/h speed limit. "He says he was being stupid. Says he knew he had an auto driver"s licence

Braun focuses on tax cuts, immigration

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CHESTERFIELD — U.S. Senate candidate Mike Braun said he will act as a “key reinforcement” for President Donald Trump if elected to office this November. Braun spoke at a Madison County Reagan Club PAC joint fundraiser earlier this week, focusing on trumpeting some of the wins he sees by the president, including tax cuts, immigration enforcement and trade deals. The Republican candidate touted the recently unveiled bilateral trade agreement with Mexico, set to replace the longstanding North American Free Trade Agreement, as a win after “shaking up” international trade with threats of high tariffs or other penalties. “President Trump’s goal is to fix things that have been baked into trading relationships over a long period of time,” Braun said, “many of them granted when we were helping countries gain strength … What he is trying to do is wean them off of stuff that has become unfair.” Much of the original NAFTA agreement remains intact with the new trade deal, which experts consider a

Stupid Patent of the Month: A Newspaper on a Screen

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One of the oldest challenges in journalism is deciding what goes on the front page. How big should the headline be? What articles merit front-page placement? When addressing these questions, publishers deal with a physical limit in the size of the page. Digital publishing faces a similar constraint: the storage capacity of the user’s device. You can only put as much content on the device as will fit. If that sounds like a fundamental to you, and unpatentable, idea, we agree. Unfortunately, the Patent Office does not. They recently decided to issue our latest Stupid Patent of the Month: U.S. No. 10,042,822 , titled “Device, Method, and System for Displaying Pages of a Digital Edition by Efficient Download of Assets.” The ’822 patent adds nothing remotely inventive or technological to the basic idea of providing a portion of a periodical— i.e. , a newspaper—based on the amount of space available. The patent owner, Nuglif , makes an application for distributing news and media content. Eve

"He lies all day": Former Mexican president slams Donald Trump for trade rhetoric

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Former Mexican president Vicente Fox is condemning U.S. President Donald Trump’s  approach to trade policies, which left Canada out of a bilateral trade deal between the U.S. and Mexico. The bilateral deal was announced in place of the North American Free Trade Agreement earlier this week, and has left Canada scrambling to negotiate its own deal with the U.S. by Friday. Story continues below READ MORE: Vicente Fox, former Mexican president, believes Canada needs to make concessions in NAFTA talks Fox made the comments during an exclusive interview with Global News’ Alan Carter on Thursday. While he said the deal between the U.S. and Mexico was good for Mexico, he agreed there’s now additional pressure put on Canada to agree to the terms. He said the negotiations had to switch to bilateral instead of trilateral because of, “sorry to say, this stupid guy we have in between us by the name of Trump.” “He’s making so many mistakes and he’s causing so much problems all around … b

Samoan PM lashes out at "utterly stupid" climate change deniers

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Samoan prime minister Tuilaepa Sailele has attacked climate change deniers as "utterly stupid", urging Australia to cut its carbon emissions. Mr Sailele, speaking during a visit to the Lowy Institute, a foreign policy think-tank in Sydney, said climate change was a "disaster" threatening Pacific Island nations.  "We all know the problem, we all know the solutions, and all that is left would be some political courage, some political guts, to tell people of your country there is a certainty of disaster," Mr Sailele told the crowd. "So any leader of any country who believes that there is no climate change, I think he ought to be taken to mental confinement. he is utterly stupid. And I say the same thing to any leader here."  His speech comes as conservative MPs up the pressure on new Australian prime minister Scott Morrison to increase investment in coal and gas and drop the commitment to Paris targets to reduce emissions.  Mr Morrison has also been

Corbyn is awful but he"s no Enoch Powell

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In the aftermath of his infamous speech on race in April 1968, Enoch Powell said that he had only one regret. He wished, instead of referring to the Roman who witnessed the River Tiber foaming with much blood, that he had used Virgil’s original Latin: “Thybrim multo spumantem sanguine cerno”. Though that might have briefly disguised his racism it would hardly have lessened it. This strange regret does, however, crystallise the difference between Enoch Powell and Jeremy Corbyn. Powell was a clever stupid man. Mr Corbyn is merely a stupid man. Yet it may be that, despite being the lesser racist, Mr Corbyn’s simpler stupidity will turn out to matter more. The odd comparison arises because Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi, said this week… Source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/corbyn-is-awful-but-he-s-no-enoch-powell-s88j2p389

Stupid Media and the Claim that Woman are Better Drivers than Men

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Consequence of feeding misinformation into a system. As with a computer, it"s garbage in, garbage out. There’s the Stupid Media and the Smart Media. Part of the job of the Smart Media (yours truly, among others), though it does get tiresome, is to debunk the stupidity of the Stupid Media. And such two-brain-cell reportage was on full display Wednesday with a Sky News article titled “Women are better drivers than men, study finds.” No, I won’t link to it and give the Stupid Media more traffic, but its theme is simple: “Male drivers seem to have more accidents than their female counterparts—costing insurers more money in claims pay-outs” (thank you, Captain Obvious), as the subtitle explains. The above statement isn’t exactly a revelation. But I suppose with newbie news readers coming online all the time, it’s always news to someone. And bashing men is a fashionable way to grab headlines. But like so much disgorged by the Stupid Media—intersex wage-gap propaganda, for instance—the

I witnessed a man bullying a woman in a bar. Should I have intervened?

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I was recently out at a bar on a Sunday afternoon. The couple next to me (who I’m not sure were actually a couple – the woman kept saying to the man, “You’re my best friend”) were having a heated discussion over a bottle of wine. Maybe they were a bit drunk. All I know is it was so awkward sitting next to them that my friends and I, and a number of others, swiftly moved from the table , despite the bar being packed. We resorted to sitting on a wall next to them but, unfortunately, still in earshot. They were argu ing about feminism and clearly the guy didn’t agree with her. I found it hard to listen to – he was completely disrespecting her. He kept calling her ideas stupid, and would say, “Can you understand how stupid you sound?” He denied her version of the world. When she talked about feeling held back as a woman he ridiculed her, asking who was holding her back and how, saying maybe it was just her own fault. It’s not that I have a problem with scrutinising what someone says, it ju

Tips to Kick Your Dangerously Stupid Texting and Driving Habit to the Curb

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 Added on August 30, 2018   The News Wheel   dangerous driving behaviors , dangers of texting and driving , distracted driving , distracted driving habits , texting and driving No Comments Texting and driving puts you and the people around you in serious danger Texting and driving is one of the stupidest and most dangerous things to do while driving. The statistics of accidents and tragedies caused by the behavior are staggering. Every driver knows texting and driving is wrong, risky, and shouldn’t be done. Yet, drivers young and old still text and drive every day. If you’re guilty of this awful habit, consider (really consider) the following suggestions to help you stop your reckless driving. Learn More: About Mitsubishi Super All Wheel Control Each year, thousands of people are killed in accidents caused by drivers who are distracted, and texting and driving is one of the major examples of a distracted driving behavior . You need to fully comprehend that every time you

Norm Macdonald, Still in Search of the Perfect Joke

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Two decades later, he has yet to recapture the fame he enjoyed when he left that show. To his thinking, though, he has moved steadily closer to his own ideal of what comedy can or should be. Macdonald speaks often about a kind of Platonic form of a joke whose punch line is identical to its setup. He feels he came close in 1995 on “Weekend Update”: “Julia Roberts told reporters this week that her marriage to Lyle Lovett has been over for some time,” he said, as a picture of the country singer’s asymmetrical face appeared behind him. “The key moment, she said, came when she realized that she was Julia Roberts, and that she was married to Lyle Lovett.” At that time, Macdonald was better known for shocking punch lines than for elegant writing, although the elements of his mature approach were already in place. Over the last two decades, he has grown more devoted to the pure joke, even as comedy has turned away from it. Contemporary stand-up increasingly positions the comedian either as a r

"It"s over, it"s a wrap, we"re done." Sacramento"s storied bail bondsmen say new law is "stupid"

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California’s newly signed law abolishing money bail makes the livelihoods of thousands of bail bondsmen obsolete — and in Sacramento, which is dotted with colorful figures from the industry, many are frustrated by the move. There are 3,200 licensed bail bondsmen in the state, and the industry accounts for at least 7,000 jobs, according to Maggie Kreins, vice president of the California Bail Agents Association. . “Bail bondsmen are insurance agents,” said Topo Padilla, president of the Golden State Bail Association and Sacramento bail bondsman. “We issue an insurance policy to the court guaranteeing a person’s appearance in court. If a person fails to appear in court, the bail industry goes out and returns people to the court. If we fail to return the person to court in time, we pay the full amount of the bond.” The new law, SB 10, replaces the money bail system with a “risk assessment” of an individual’s likelihood of returning for court hearings and their chances of getting arreste

Florida GOP congressman says Ron DeSantis should apologize for "stupid" monkey comment

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo said Thursday that Florida Republican gubernatorial nominee Ron DeSantis’ “monkey this up” comment aimed at Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum was “stupid.” And, he said, DeSantis should apologize for a comment that offended many people. The DeSantis comments on Fox News, the morning after he won the Republican nomination, set off a political firestorm on social media and dominated much of the political news coverage in Florida, and nationally, for much of the day Wednesday. DeSantis called Gillum “articulate” and said he “performed better” than other Democratic candidates, then said voters should not “monkey this up” by voting for someone with Gillum’s views. Gillum would be Florida’s first black governor if elected, and Democrats labeled the comments a racist “dog whistle.” The NAACP Florida State Conference demanded an apology. Gillum himself didn’t go that far in TV interviews on Wednesday, suggesting instead that DeSanti

Yoursay: Replace OSA with Freedom of Information Act

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YOURSAY | I thought this was "New Malaysia". I guess you can"t teach an old dog new tricks. PM: OSA to stay, so elect those who won"t abuse the law Malaysian Born: Sorry, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, this is not good enough (for the rakyat to elect politicians who won’t abuse the Official Secrets Act). There has been a clear abuse of this law by past governments. Even the Internal Security Act (ISA) was abused for political reasons by the government led by you in the past. To say we have to trust the government is utter nonsense and cannot be accepted. We are not stupid. There must come a time that we tell the politicians and lawmakers to do their job; draft, and where necessary, re-draft laws so that abuse of such laws is very unlikely, if not impossible. There is no such thing as trusting any politician with laws that can be abused, as they have shown themselves to be completely undependable when their political future comes under threat. So, with all du

Rodrigo Duterte is due in Israel on Sunday. Why are we opening our doors to him?

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On May 7, 2016, in the final speech of the campaign that would see him elected president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, the former mayor of the southern city of Davao City, vowed to “butcher” criminals if elected. “Forget the laws on human rights,” he said. “If I make it to the presidential palace, I will do just what I did as mayor… I’d kill you.” On the campaign trail, the AFP news agency reported as the Philippines went to the polls days later, Duterte had promised to kill tens of thousands of criminals, threatened to establish one-man rule if lawmakers disobeyed him, boasted repeatedly about Viagra-fueled affairs, and promised voters that his mistresses would not cost a lot because he kept them in cheap boardinghouses and took them to short-stay hotels for sex. He called the pope a “son of a bitch” — for sparking a huge traffic jam during a 2015 Manila visit in which Duterte was stuck for hours. And he joked that he would like to have raped a “beautiful” Australian missiona